Thomas Reid Quotes

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.

Education is the art of making man ethical.

With morality we correct the mistakes of our instincts, and with love we correct the mistakes of our morals.

Many are really virtuous who cannot explain what virtue is . . . But the powers themselves in reality perform their several operations with sufficient constancy and uniformity in persons of good health whatever their opinions be about them . . .

We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.

The best companion and helper is admirable morals.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though along; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by [Moral] Virtue.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.

You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action - that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one.

He is noble who both feels and acts nobly.

In every case, we ought to act that part towards another, which we would judge to be right in him to act toward us, if we were in his circumstances and he in ours; or more generally - What we approve in others, that we ought to practise in like circumstances, what we condemn in others we ought not to do.

It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting

In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad.

A man's acts are usually right, but his reasons seldom are.

To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.

An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud.

Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species.

If a man does what is good, let him do it again; let him delight in it; happiness is the outcome of good.

Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality

Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous.